We now have an answer to the age-old question, “How many CNN ‘reporters’ does it take to write a 1096-word story?” and it’s three. CNN sent three of their employees – Jeremy Diamond, Kevin Liptak and Betsy Klein – to try and sell the concept of “Bidenomics.” If you are unfamiliar with what Bidenomics is, every time you go to a grocery store for a few staples of life and it costs you $60, that’s Bidenomics. CNN asks “Is anyone buying?” Unfortunately, we all have to as long as he and his fellow Democrats are in the White House.
CNN’s report opens, “President Joe Biden’s top economic advisers believe the worst effects of inflation are in the rear-view mirror. They are increasingly confident the economy is heading for a soft-landing, averting a recession. And a growing number of economists are beginning to agree. There’s just one problem: most Americans are convinced the economy is in bad shape, and they blame the president. Enter 'Bidenomics.'"
Imagine having this as your strategy – we might have just avoided a recession, we hope, and you’re welcome for that. It’s hilarious, and would be even funnier were it not for the fact that the crusty, senile rube in the Oval Office is beating the GOP frontrunner in just about every national poll and the guy in second place in some of them. In any event, whoever is at the top of the ticket for the Republicans is going to face a very close race with an absolute disaster of a president. It’s a testament to not only how horrible the GOP is at messaging, but also to the power the media still has to prop up a literal sack of waste.
The term Bidenomics is something Republicans should have coined and hammered for the last two years. “Sick of high gas prices? That’s Bidenomics.” “Sick of high food prices? Thank Bidenomics.” “Worried about finding enough baby formula? That’s what Bidenomics created.” Things like that.
Now that Democrats coined it and are using it, redefining it will be more difficult. Once again, the GOP’s inability to message and anticipate messaging comes back to bite us all.
CNN reports, “Searching for a solution to Americans’ negative perception of the economy and a vehicle to take credit for an economy that is increasingly trending in the right direction – all as Biden’s reelection campaign gets underway – the White House is embracing the term.”
According to a White House memo written by “messaging experts” to the Biden team, “Bidenomics is rooted in the simple idea that we need to grow the economy from the middle out and the bottom up – not the top down.”
That’s meaningless pap, a worthless talking point. But it’s also the kind of garbage that works, especially in the absence of something effective to counter it. And what are you hearing from Republicans, both running for the GOP nomination or in Congress? That’s not a rhetorical question, I haven’t heard anything and am wondering if I missed it?
Unintentionally hilarious was the end of the CNN report where they paint the president as a clueless rube unaware of the term him own employees coined.
“Biden himself seemed surprised this month that his surname had achieved “-nomics” status,” CNN writes. “‘I didn’t realize I had Bidenomics going,’ he said during a news conference with his British counterpart on June 8, suggesting he’d learned the term in the pages of the Wall Street Journal. Ten days later – as the White House put the final touches on the forthcoming messaging push – he hadn’t seemed to achieve any more clarity on what, exactly, this theory of his was. ‘We decided to replace this theory (trickle-down economics) with what the press has now called ‘Bidenomics,’ he said during a political rally with union members in Philadelphia. ‘I don’t know what the hell that is. But it’s working.’”
If you can’t campaign against “I don’t know what the hell that is. But it’s working,” quit. Now.
If you can’t message against the White House claiming inflation is down because last month it was 4 percent and the GOP has spent exactly no time educating people on how inflation is cumulative – meaning it was up 4 percent from the previous month, not a cut from its high – retire. Prices increasing at a slightly slower rate is not prices coming down, especially when they’d been climbing so quickly before.
Instead, we get petty infighting between candidates, between Members of Congress, and pointless exercises in vanity and ego. There’s a pretty good chance Republicans fail to recapture the White House and the Senate next year, and they might even lose the House. Everything is lined up to help them…except their own egos and intelligence. That’s not Bidenomics, that’s their own damn fault.
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.